[MUD-Dev] Re: Ugh, IS Diablo a mud?

[Jo Dillon <emily#thelonious,new.ox.ac.uk>]

Koster, Raph (rkoster#origin,ea.com) spake thusly:

> Many of the early muds in fact reset the entire world, because they were
> based around the concept of a scavenger hunt. You tried to gather as
> many of the hunt items as you could, and drop them in a central location
> to score points. You can still see remnants of this design in AberMUDs
> and their descendants, including the ubiquitous town squares in
> Diku-derivatives... so in fact many of the early muds were not really
> very persistent.

   For what it's worth, modern Abers (an oxymoron if ever I heard one,
but..) still work in exactly this way, though you can also get points by
killing things and solving puzzles. It does have some design advantages;
puzzles are always guaranteed to be reset to a working condition now and
then even if players carry off vital bits.

	Jo